TNAG-2727-FCO40-3933-Hong-Kong-political-parties-Association-for-Democracy-and-Pe-1993 — Page 18

II. The Bill of Rights Ordinance after 1997

The Chinese and British governments have put a lot of efforts into resolving the future of the Hong Kong political system.

system. We also hope that the two governments will put greater efforts in the question of human rights in Hong Kong. Only by doing this can we ensure that the style of living in Hong Kong will not undergo any change. We believe that the Bill of Rights Ordinance passed in 1991 is a guarantee to the human rights for Hong Kong people, and thus it has received support from the majority.

However, according to Section 160 of the Basic Law, existing laws. in Hong Kong have to go through a process whereby they are adopted to become the laws of the SAR. The Standing Committee of the People's Congress play a decisive role since it has the right to declare whether an existing law violates the Basic Law. If it does, it has to be repealed or amended. To ensure the continuity of the legal system after 1997 and the enforcement of the Bill of Rights Ordinance, we have the following proposals.

Proposals

i.

ii.

We believe that the British government, as the existing Sovereign state of Hong Kong, has the responsibility of discussing with the Chinese government in order to resolve the question of adoption of existing laws in 1997.

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We propose that the process of adoption should be a mere formality only. All existing laws should be automatically adopted in order to maintain continuity. To ensure that such formality works, we urge the government to speed up the process of reviewing and amending all existing laws of Hong Kong for the sake of the transfer of sovereignty and to comply with the Bill of Rights Ordinance.

We

Regarding the right of review of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress, we consider that such right must be respected. It is however also necessary to provide for a specified- procedure under which such review is to be carried out. regret that this question has not yet been discussed by the two governments. We suggest that the Standing Committee should exercise such right of review only when there is an actual case of possible conflict between an existing law and the Basic Law, and only upon referral of such a case by the local courts.